T-Bone

that's funny don't remember ever seeing that...Google search says it came out in 1984 - about the time we were in the corps program...also known as the outside-world-deprivation-program.

Man, that tune is kick a$$ !!!! reminds me of bands like Tower of Power, The Ohio Players, Average White Band and a smidgen of Parliament Funkadelic...now mind you I said the TUNE was kick a$$...but that's just the tune – the music...the melodies – I was kinda turned off by the corny pretentious lyrics ...it's a shame they wasted a kick a$$ tune on such cheesy commercial hype...excuse me while I feel this groove

That got me thinking...what if they ran an ad for Advanced Class staff...what would it look like? == == == == Advanced Class Staff needed Positions now being filled to overflowing by those who think they are qualified. Only those who believe they operate all nine all the time need apply. It may be necessary to put unbelievers out of the room while reading this ad. Applicants must be debt free. Applicants should have an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness to look the other way when necessary. All those interested in helping people dispose of their precious time and money should submit their resume along with a required minimum donation of $567 non-refundable processing fee. If TWI reviewers ascertain (or if push comes to shove they acquiesce) that you have Advanced-Class-Staff potential, you will be brought in to Headquarters (at your own expense) for further testing. All (without exception) resumes will be reviewed. All (with distinction) resumes not making the cut will be held in abeyance for a time, times and half a time or until there's another shortage of cheap labor. Qualification testing at Headquarters may include oral, written and hands-on challenges. The following is a small sample of the testing: Applicants will be tested on how fast they can repair a video cassette tape that was eaten by a vintage Betamax Player. Do you know the best way to stretch coffee? Do you enjoy laying your grubby little hands on people when you minister to them? Are you proficient in discerning any people with black hearts while standing in the checkout line at Walmart? Are you conversant with the most current “present truth”? Do you use “first-thought” when picking the lottery numbers? Do your “ovaries” ever hurt when you walk by the maternity ward? Do you invariably win arguments by declaring your opponent is wrong-seed? Do you know any Jedi mind tricks? Are you able to stay awake at will during extreme bouts of boredom and repetitious gobbledygook? Can you feign interest during some long-winded tales of yore? If you answered “yes” or “no” to any of the above questions you may already be an Advanced Class staffer chosen from the foundational class on soured by redundant living...since believing is acting like you've already received - go ahead and send the required minimum donation of $567 non-refundable processing fee even before you submit your resume...of course when you actually do submit your resume there is still the required minimum donation of $567 non-refundable processing fee - but that will be considered your abundant sharing. Salary commensurate with what TWI believes is available.

So I clicked on the link...looked things over...and checked out their photos on the Flickr link...looked at a bunch of group shots from anniversary services, camps and classes...I kinda feel bad for those folks – wasting their time, money, energy...I bet some of them even stew over making the right career or other big life-decisions so that it won't disrupt their orbit around TWI...sad just sad.

that's a good idea...I'll just reach for one of these

Since we're getting into technicalities – I've got a question – suppose I took the old class – got possessed – then took the “repaired class” and got depossessed...but then defaulted on my obligation to abundantly share and got repossessed...but then I mastered the "repaired class" material and became self-possessed...then rose in rank to be a prominent leader by being wierwille-obsessed...but then pointed out the "repaired class" was the same as the old class just in new packaging – then got marked and avoided – dispossessed (stripped of rank and responsibilities)...and then ...and then...uhm... what was the question? No wait – I was asking the question...never mind – I forgot what my question was.

That's a excellent point ! Initially...for me anyway, I think it was the power-grab after “The Passing of a Patriarch” that was an emotional gut punch...a betrayal...my trust...my confidence had been violated...which made me wonder what was my trust in...doubts, questions, bitter memories, repressed feelings and forgotten thoughts came flooding in – my mind was awash in ignored red flags, forgotten issues, pent up anger and frustrations... ...over time, upon deeper reflection and slowly engaging those atrophied critical thinking muscles I began to realize the bigger problem was hidden in plain sight...I was in a cult of personality – that TWI was really all about wierwille... When wierwille passed away, his larger than life charismatic influence that gave TWI its power to control devoted wierwille-followers was also gone.

yeah - but come to think of it - I shouldn't be surprised ... one of wierwille's go-to motivational techniques was by inducing fear and paranoia of the devil...and here Craig is doing the same thing...well, golly gee willikers I guess wierwille was right - you can't go beyond what you're taught.

I think another aspect of servitude and the way corps was the warm and fuzzy assumption that service to the ministry was service to God...at least I used to think that anyway...and what comes to mind now is the Martha and Mary priority dilemma in Luke 10: 38 -42 : 38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” My takeaways from the account in light of this thread: Martha was so preoccupied with the details of serving that she forgot the importance of their guest – Jesus Christ – and that he was teaching !!!!! ...my fed-up-sideways application of this passage to TWI servitude is that I went into the way corps to learn how to best serve The Way Ministry – a ministry based on wierwille's idea that “The Word” takes the place of the absent Christ...I guess that makes me the Martha in this situation. But you gotta give the Marys a lot of credit who realized TWI was missing the guest of honor and so they left TWI and joined a Christ-centered church.

holy crap !!! he really said that ?!!!!!! that's so bizarre ! the cult mentality of TWI doesn't even make sense to me anymore...and the dwindling number of folks still in TWI are a lot worse off than I thought.

ahhh so you were the fifth Beatle wheel I used to lip-sync to Beatles' tunes – just another unsung hero.

did they give an idea in numbers ? approximate number of attendees ?

I've been reading the “Useful Delusions” book Rocky mentioned earlier and just wanted to elaborate on my thinking behind my first post – and hopefully clarify some things about self-deception (which sounds like an oxymoron ). If you will look just below my first post on this thread you will see that Grease Spot displays the message: “Jun 13 T-Bone changed the title to Self-deception hides the truth about TWI” Originally the title of the thread was “Self-Deception hides the truth of TWI”. ...Right after I “published” the starter post – I quickly realized it was possible for certain folks to misconstrue the idea to mean self-deception keeps people from seeing the truth taught by TWI...maybe I was being too particular but I had no intention of catering to any straw man arguments certain folks try to push here – like wierwille's plagiarism or bad behavior negates any of the truth he taught...nope - I've never said that it does. So let me be clear about that. PFAL and any of wierwille's other work (whether plagiarized or actually his own ideas) are basically teachings on how to interpret the Bible and how to apply the Bible. Sometimes his interpretation or application may have been right – but that does not grant any of his work or the work of any other person for that matter the same status as Scripture. He may quote Scripture but that doesn't mean his interpretation or application is the gospel truth. As hard as it is to believe that there are still some folks who hold the work of wierwille in such high regard...The starting post on a recent thread stated: “I was an advocate here that we return to PFAL to see how much we missed the first time(s), and to see how much we forgot or drifted from. I am convinced that 99% of all the woes reported here are due to us all NOT GETTING IT RIGHT the first times.” ( you can see the full post here   ) as of this posting there are 18,032 Grease Spot members. Should we assign just 1 woe (cause of sorrow, distress, or trouble) to each member? 99 percent of that would be 17,851.68 woes (.68 being a fraction of a woe). 18,032 minus 17,851.68 leaves only 180.32 actual legitimate woes...I am 50 percent convinced that anyone who pulls such a ridiculous statistic out of their a$$ is either totally self-deceived, a soft-core troll, a TWI-paid-informant or thinks we're all idiots...there could be more options too – but I'm just gonna move on to make my point. And my point is simply that self-deception keeps us from seeing TWI for what it really is – a harmful and controlling cult. In the book Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other Peoples Minds      by Howard Gardner that I mentioned in my first post – Gardner said he focused on changes of mind that occur consciously, typically as a result of forces that can identified, rather than through subtle manipulation. I Googled “brainwashing versus indoctrination” and among other things I found a couple of good answers like this : "1. Your confusion may come from the historical existence of ‘indoctrination camps’, usually run by Communist regimes, which exacted a form of obedience through hardship, forced education, deprivation, humiliation, and sometimes torture. Non-aggressive indoctrination is as you describe: in a religious setting, the willing reception towards, and acceptance of, doctrine. Brainwashing, on the other hand, is a more forceful and invasive process on an unwilling or unwitting subject, which involves coercion, torture, drugs, hypnotic suggestion and other methods to affect behavior. Theoretically, brainwashing leaves the subject thus affected not consciously aware of the brainwashing experience, and unaware of the altered motivations behind their actions. The protagonist of the ‘Jason Bourne’ action movies and novels is an example of brainwashing taken to an extreme I don’t believe exists in the real world... 2. ...According to online dictionary definitions indoctrinate and brainwash are near synonyms, however indoctrinate is a much older (17th century) word which originally merely meant "teach", although it seems to have been applied mainly to the teaching of religion: brainwashing as a word did not appear until the 1950s. The difference between the two words is that brainwashing originally described coercive techniques applied to unwilling subjects (there were suggestions that Gary Powers had been brainwashed after his U2 plane was brought down over the USSR in 1960 and spy fiction and movies like The Ipcress File included supposed brainwashing sequences) whereas indoctrination has usually been thought of as a gentler and longer-term process applied to children and willing converts. The definition of brainwashing in popular usage has, however been broadened to include what would previously have been thought of as indoctrination ("The government brainwashed us into supporting the war", "North Koreans are all brainwashed", "ISIS fighters are brainwashed into carrying out suicide attacks" and so on). The negative implications of indoctrination come from the fact that much indoctrination involves presenting the subject only with material and sources which support the views held by the person or organisation doing the indoctrinating, and classifying other material and sources as evil or incompatible with the views being promoted (the attitude of some fundamentalist Christian organisations to The Origin of Species being an example)" from: English Stack Exchange - Indoctrination vs Brainwashing To me the difference between the two is soft-sell (indoctrination, friendly persuasion, person-to-person that is indirect in that it focuses on building a reputation and a relationship with the customer...think romance-phase of new TWI-members – love-bombing...soft-sell tactics are usually associated with brands, large firms, complex sales) versus hard-sell (brainwashing, aggressive tactics to persuade customer to make an immediate purchase, repeated calls to action, make strong claims to address common objections...hard-sell tactics are usually associated with small firms, one-time sales -think sell-your-soul-to-the-cult-leader – like the way corps program – "a lifetime of Christian service").... and regardless of what ever type of selling it was and whether or not we were aware of all that was in play – we fell for it – we were deceived against our will – the scamming party shares the blame of our condition – being fooled. for if we knew the details of the scam we would have said “no deal”. But if the deception is self-imposed – we may not be consciously aware of it...it may be hard to detect and hard to eliminate. When I started this thread, I had a one dimensional concept of self-deception – it was mostly bad and hard to identify...since I've been reading “Useful Delusions” I'm seeing some relevance to another topic I find fascinating – the authentic-self versus the adaptive-self...and that being adaptive isn't necessarily a bad thing if it helps an individual to function well within a society...Googling “adaptive self versus authentic self” I found a number of good articles – one of which I copied below (note the author uses the term “conditioned self” instead of adaptive self...”conditioned” in psychology is proceeding from or dependent on a conditioning of the individual; learned; acquired) : “Authentic Self We’re born as an “Authentic Self” – which includes our genetics, innate qualities, gifts, preferences, temperaments, and more. At some level we know our purpose for being on the planet. Even babies can make their feelings known, and there’s initially no conflict about it. We want what we want, and we express those desires simply – sometimes loudly! We sleep, eat, and poop according to our own inner clocks. We respond to others, and spontaneously smile and laugh. Hopefully our parents accept us exactly as we are. Conditioned Self But things become more complex with time and proximity. The mutually reverberating, emotionally charged connections between ourselves and our parents continue to develop. We learn what makes them smile and frown – and it feels better to experience the former than the latter. In order to fit in and be loved, we unconsciously tailor our responses accordingly. This process creates the “Conditioned Self,” which grows layer upon layer over time. Our Needs for Connection Our needs for connection can make us gradually move farther away from our natural, “Authentic Self,” and more into “Conditioned Self” mode. We can also become fearful or distraught when our natural urges seem to conflict with the preferences of important others we love and want to please. Our survival instincts rear up to keep us safe – sometimes at odds with our desires for adventure and growth. from: Authentic Self or Conditioned Self: Who's Showing Up in Your Life? By Dr Pam Pappas March 19th 2019 I started off my first post with a bold phrase: Self-deception: The Enemy Within Simply put – sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. (there's all kinds of articles on that - like here ) In “Useful Delusions” the authors talk about a kind of lie people don't really think about. The kind of lying that doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings. It's not that we don't value honesty, but we value the other person's feelings more and so bend to our feelings of loyalty toward them... ...when a loved one asks “does this dress make me look fat?” “what do you think of my new hairdo?” “did you like the present I got you?” or when a co-worker asks “what did you think of my idea at the meeting today?” are you always brutally honest ? Perhaps some little white lies are an integral part of interpersonal skills...I actually have thought about starting another thread “Adapting to life in a cult” - what would it get into...I dunno...maybe stuff about our adaptive-self setting up insulation, defenses and countermeasures so that some leadership a$$hole doesn't run roughshod over our authentic-self...it could wind up being a real soap-opera-tear-jerker-episodic-TV-MA kind of a thread...you know, kind of a name-the worst-situation-and-what-you-did-to-cope sort of a thread...it's been done here many times before. I think self-deception becomes self-sabotage when it creates problems in daily life and interferes with long-term goals. Like thinking your biggest problems, failures or not getting anywhere in life are actually due to you missing, forgetting, not getting it right the first time or simply drifting away from PFAL...how sad... Think about the two quotes I gave in my first post: Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth (or lack of truth) so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception. from Wikipedia We deceive ourselves because we don’t have enough psychological strength to admit the truth and deal with the consequences that will follow. (clinical psychologist Cortney S. Warren ) Now think of your scale of values – the mental inventory you use to determine what is of merit, useful, desirable in life. Can you separate fact from fiction? Can you separate truth from lies? How many times have you glossed over certain points in TWI-teachings or ignored red flags that cropped up from TWI policies or practices or from what someone did? Do you have the strength to be honest? Are you willing to face the consequences? You all probably know me by now and that I like to address those in or out of TWI who kid themselves out of thinking TWI is a harmful and controlling cult. I kid you not. TWI is a harmful and controlling cult. Self-deception may be hard to detect but I believe there's ways to smoke it out. In the book Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life authors Richard Paul and Linda Elder address the issue: “The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking you have no chance of correcting it. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don’t see any problems in it, you won’t be motivated to change it…most people are in many ways victims of their own thinking” Exposing self-deception regarding the TWI-mindset is not as difficult as it sounds. It can be a fun exercise in critical thinking - if you're willing to dig into the various levels of your own thinking - and be honest about it . It's a matter of writing down some of the big ideas promoted by TWI that sold you on the ministry. Write one point per line and skip down a few spaces for the next point – so you leave some room under each point to write down if you've had any doubts, issues or red flags with it......if you don't come up with anything counter to TWI stuff then stop wasting time on this – get back into that joyous and exciting Groundhog-Day-rut-of-a-life-in-TWI and continue wasting time in that...come on...be honest...I am 99 percent convinced there are Grease Spotters out there with 180.32 actual legitimate woes (refer to my above math problem - yeah honestly I always had a problem with math )...you know who you are...uhm...or maybe it's just one poor Grease Spotter bearing the burden of all 180.32 actual legitimate woes...not sure...I'm getting a really strong feeling about these woes...call it an opportunity if you like...a woes by any other name would smell just as bad...it's being revealed to me that someone's bursitis is acting up while typing on the computer...oh wait – that's me.

When I first read your post I thought maybe it was supposed to be on another thread – maybe that one started by Rocky in open - malignant narcissism I Googled “recovery from narcissistic abuse” and found some good articles – like this one Recovery from narcissistic abuse by Dr Sarah Davies Sept. 22nd 2020 ….But as I kept thinking about what Bolshevik said I sort of relaxed my focus on self-deception and began to see some relevancy... Narcissism is defined as excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance; in psychology it's selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. In psychoanalysis it's self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder...a synonym for that is self-obsessed - excessively preoccupied with one's own life and circumstances; thinking only about oneself... ...Considering the malignancy of narcissism in wierwille and other cult leaders I would think it's possible an infectious self-obsession variant could beset devoted followers of those leaders – sort of vicariously - experienced in my imagination through the actions of the cult leader...I remember a limb coordinator trying to psyche me up by saying you've got to see yourself as God's man for the fellowships you oversee. That's got to be some type of self-deception – we were just kidding ourselves about our importance to God...we were important to managing a cult maybe...but important to God? Uh-uh ! Looking back, I sometimes wonder if there was some quasi subliminal message in the way TWI promoted wierwille and all his “accomplishments”. Perhaps a subconscious motto was formed – something like wwwd - or - what would wierwille do - that encapsulated the revered position wierwille held in our hearts – that anything he thought, said or did became almost sanctified as a standard, an ideal, a guide for doing anything...I dunno...just thinking out loud...who really knows what all goes on in the subconscious anyway...I do appreciate the work of philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, etc. but most of the time when I read up on that stuff I feel like a new renter in an apartment complex – and the maintenance guy tells me there's a problem in the attic...the basement...actually it's in the attic over your next door neighbor – it's running down the common wall between you two and dripping onto your storage unit in the basement...geez - life is complicated...and who changed their oil in my parking space?

Rocky you've mentioned that book on another thread – and when you brought it up again here, I read the book description – that really got my curiosity up – and it also mentioned another book of his “The Hidden Brain.” - so I read that description too (I'll copy some of both descriptions and paste below to tempt you all... bwa ha ha ha ha ha... try to stop me now Austin Powers )...and so I downloaded both to my Kindle...Ever since I read Jean Shinoda Bolen's insightful book The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self which also got me into Carl Jung's stuff (and a few other psychologists as well) – I am really enjoying exploring stuff like intuition, Taoism, how and why we decide on certain things, and maybe I'll get a better idea of how critical thinking relates to all this...ya know, when I first came to Grease Spot I really latched onto any critical thinking stuff that folks would share – it's pretty straight forward... but this intuition stuff...this hidden brain stuff...it's some very sneaky and mysterious stuff ! Rocky, if you or anyone else has some more points to share on any of this – whether from those books or your own insight – then feel free to share...I realize I started this thread with just some basic negative aspects of the experience – but in keeping with the spirit of the double-edged sword of Grease Spot (it's sort of a mixed blessing) - a varied curriculum that reflects the duality of life – we learn about our mistakes...we can learn from our mistakes...and then hopefully we can heal (in part anyway) from our mistakes...hmmmm I guess that's a triple-edged sword ...anyway ...it's a lifetime of learning – and I'm still in school... and I have a dual major ...the duality of life. == == == == as promised: Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain : “Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter.” The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives “The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist or a group of bystanders into a mob. In a series of compulsively readable narratives, Shankar Vedantam journeys through the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to uncover the darkest corner of our minds and its decisive impact on the choices we make as individuals and as a society. “

Yup - got the files and they work ! when I read I try not to subvocalize - since I don't like the sound of my own voice...I don't think band members ever liked the sound of my voice either - "you just stick with the bass, Kid"...but you know, in my mind my bass playing always sounded real good.

well you weren't kidding...must be I'm so use to lively and entertaining TED talks - this is more like an audible book...but - I like books - and I am fascinated by the points they made yeah - I'll PM you for that... Rocky, thanks for posting this.

That's understandable... ...going by your 10 year active involvement yet being unaware of such awful things happening to some folks, I would venture to say you were never in the way corps program. The general flow of information is from the top down – from the top brass at HQ down and out to the general TWI-public via the Way Tree...depending on variations in personality and management styles there might be some filtering, buffering, reinterpretation and tweaking of the info sometimes...and if you were real lucky maybe you've got some disenchanted leader in your area who just might give you the real scoop on something...it's a longshot but it could happen ...Unless one is privy to the inner workings of The Way International, inquiring minds will have to sift through the noise, bull$hit and obfuscation from rumors, prognostications, blame-shifting, “situation reports”, spiritualizing, propaganda, pseudo-significance and general hubbub that flows downstream from TWI-headquarters... ...the informative value of knowing what really makes TWI tick cannot be overstated – and that's something known only to the people who actually work for it – I'm not referring to just TWI-salaried workers but non-salaried workers as well, like myself who were way corps and had to work a secular job to support our “bad habit” of working for a sleazeball cheapskate ministry in our “spare time” - running twigs, branches, classes, taking time off from secular jobs to work at the R.O.A. and corps week and any other super-duper hyped-up event that the top dogs deemed was necessary for way corps to work at...I'm sure a lot of non-salaried way corps workers were gung ho like me during their secular career(s) – having TWI's agenda at the top of the list of priorities in choosing any job...in other words the number one stipulation in considering any job was that schedule-wise it should accommodate my desire to participate in ministry classes, fellowships, large group events and programs...and think of what that looks like to an employer – so great, you're a hard worker and honest, but it always seems like you're working this side job so you have some money for your real passion of playing church - and news flash: it's not even a real church ... this inside look of TWI was discussed recently here and here ...geez - if you saw what actually goes into making the way corps you'd probably run for the hills - because of the phony ingredients - there's nothing Christian or biblical about it - you could slap all the Christian and biblical sounding labels on any of the curriculum you want to...at best it's almost Christian in appearance...maybe you've seen the SNL commercial spoof Almost Pizza ...yeah - it's weird like that. Coming to Grease Spot – it's like Paul Harvey use to say “...and now you know the rest of the story...good day!”

I uninstalled Neat Office and then downloaded Open Office...it works great ! I have not seen any "not responding" messages with Open Office like I did with Neat Office. My laptop is still having disk error issues - same as before I did the big reset - now every so often I get an alert to restart my laptop so it can run scandisk...I think it's probably about time I replace this old laptop (I'm thankful it's lasted this long - 10 years and starting with Windows 8 and upgrading to Windows 10)...maybe if it can hold up for another month or two. Rocky and WordWolf I appreciate your input! Thanks!

Great posts and besides that Yikes ! Your posts got me thinking about that weird mind-corralling stuff again!...Yeah - they appealed to our desire for fellowship with God and then designed a Rube Goldberg system of thought to “help” us attain that...maybe that weird mind-corralling stuff is the epoxy of group cohesion. ...and whether it was intentional or not – it wound up having us adopt a self-imposed-Busy-Box-mentality...honestly I tend to think that mental habit those pseudo-spiritual bozos promoted was really just to keep us so preoccupied with our own Christian walk that we didn't notice or dared to even think of confronting them about any of their unchristian behavior...hmmmm... I bet I could have got myself kicked out of the way corps program in 50 words or less - - just imagine: after a long night owl of wierwille smoking and guzzling Drambui and sharing all his heart, I say to our campus coordinator “Doctor (and I use that term loosely ) sure does like his Drambui.” The campus coordinator (John H) with a scowl on his face says to me “the love of God thinketh no evil. You should think The Word of Doctor (he uses the term reverentially).” And I respond “but I was thinking about The Word regarding his behavior, Romans 13:13 where it says 'Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and debauchery, not in strife and jealousy'. ” - said with a $hit eating grin on my face...campus coordinator turns beet red and growls “pack your bags and go – you don't belong in the way corps”....(okay - so I lost the bet - I could have kept my words under 50 if I quoted just the first part of Romans 13:13 - but all that stuff about sexual promiscuity, debauchery , strife and jealousy seemed just as applicable ) When I think of their pseudo-spiritual hypocrisy and the load of bull$hit they heaped on our backs I think of Matthew 23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

Self-deception: The Enemy Within One of the biggest challenges I faced after leaving The Way International was in reconciling myself to the thought that I was deceived...misled...indoctrinated...brainwashed...conned...or whatever word you want to slap on it – it just seems to have such negative connotations and social stigma – and yet I believe it's one bitter pill I needed to swallow. But no matter how much mesmerizing power you may want to assign to a charismatic cult leader – I suspect there may be some “mechanism” within the mind of a cult follower that helps the “spellbinding ideology” take hold. I know zilch about psychology – and it's been some 35 years since I left TWI – and yet I'm always fascinated to learn about that stuff in an effort to analyze and understand not only my cult experience but even the day-to-day mental and emotional factors that govern my situations, activities and interpersonal relationships...there's been many times when I've looked back on a weird situation, a bad decision, gung-ho participation in something and wonder “what the hell was I thinking?”. ... In his book Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own Minds and Other People’s Minds developmental psychologist Howard Gardner said that the phenomenon of changing minds is one of the least examined and least understood of familiar human experiences...well...ahem...glad to see that I'm not alone on this. .. .. Recently on a few threads the problem of self-deception has come to mind. So I Googled “self-deception and cults” and found some interesting articles – one of which I copied/pasted below – it's an old article (December 2016) that refers to an even older book (from 1956) in which the authors endeavored to answer the question how do we handle the internal conflict that arises when facts or events contradict deeply held beliefs? So what follows is the brief article and after that I've given the link: Five Faces of Self-Deception in a Post-Fact World When facts challenge deeply held beliefs, how do we avoid deceiving ourselves? (Posted December 30, 2016 by Dale M. Kushner) "How do we handle the internal conflict that arises when facts or events contradict deeply held beliefs? In his groundbreaking book, When Prophecy Fails (1956), Leon Festinger and his co-authors sought to answer that question by investigating a doomsday cult. The group was led by a Chicago housewife who claimed to channel warnings from the fictitious planet, Clarion. Through automatic writing she was told that the Earth would be destroyed by a cataclysmic flood before dawn on December 21, 1954. The faithful quit jobs, left spouses, and gave away money and possessions, in preparation for the arrival of a flying saucer that would rescue them. When the flying saucer did not appear, and the flood did not happen, the cultists changed the narrative, and then changed it again. They convinced themselves that their clocks were wrong. When they recognized that their clocks were correct, they set a new time for the arrival of the spaceship. When that event failed to occur, they convinced themselves that God had chosen to spare the world at the last minute because of their good deeds. To explain this behavior, Festinger coined the term “cognitive dissonance.” This theory states that when there is discordance between our beliefs and external events or actions, we either change our actions or change our beliefs. Many people are reluctant to change their behavior, so they double down on their belief. In the case of the Clarion cult, so many had sacrificed so much in preparation for Armageddon, they were unwilling to change their actions, so they changed the narrative of their belief. Self-deception is familiar to most of us. Willful ignorance allows us to evade examining situations that conjure cognitive dissonance. (“It’s okay to cheat on my diet on weekends.”) Often we rationalize our deceptions under the pretense of not wanting to hurt others (we know those little white lies are lies!), or to not “rock the boat.” This kind of self-deception occurs in various degrees in most of our relationships, but especially where there is disequilibrium in power, as between employee and boss. Sometimes self-deception is an unconscious protective mechanism that enables one to survive a threatening experience. Prisoners in concentration camps needed a buffer of self-deception to remain faithful to the idea of their liberation even when their daily lives suggested otherwise. We may deceive ourselves about the seriousness of an illness or about our impending death. The difficulties of such situations encourage us to ignore the truth in order to thrive. Morality and ethics enter the domain of self-deception when our self-deceiving conflicts with the greater good. As Nietzsche wrote in Ecce Homo, “How much truth does a spirit endure? How much truth does it dare?” At its most devastating, self-deception can demonstrate the human capacity to split off or dissociate the parts of the self that perpetuate war, torture, and abuse. Nobel Prize-winning writer Luigi Pirandello captured this when he wrote in a private notebook, “There is somebody who’s living my life. And I know nothing about him.” We see the fragmentation of self not only in those suffering from dissociative personality disorders, but also in those engaged in brutal and bullying acts while maintaining a “normal” persona. We all know the clichéd trope of the mass murderer who lavishes affection on his dog. The expression “Post-Fact World” has now seeped into our vernacular. We seem to have entered a time not only of questioning facts, but one of moral ambiguity as it relates to truth. Unless we are willing to try to attend to the truth as it is, not as we wish it to be, and to confront our capacity to self-deceive, we may experience an unprecedented turbulence in our lives. The Five Faces of Self-Deception: Evasion of examining one’s biases or strongly held beliefs. Moral forgetfulness. Avoidance of contradictory beliefs or evidence. Avoidance of feelings that contradict beliefs. Over-rationalization and the tendency to blame others." from: Five Faces of Self-Deception == == == ==== While I was in the ministry - when facts or events didn't agree with my TWI-beliefs I think my fallback position was self-deception...A charismatic leader like wierwille was indeed powerfully mesmerizing – but perhaps the Achilles heel within my heart was a stealthful “mechanism” of self-deception that enabled his spellbinding ideology to maintain a firm grip on my soul...instead of reevaluating the extraordinary claims of the benefits of the PFAL class - I would resign myself to any issues being due to my lack of believing or not mastering the material when things didn't pan out the way wierwille said it would...and as weird as it may sound – one of the most unsettling “benefits” of going through the way corps program was that experience threw a huge wrench into my self-deception, i.e. thinking that wierwille and the ministry were so of god...During my time in-residence there were so many facts, events, experiences, hypocrisies, abuses, lies, coercion, and manipulations that contradicted the plain truths and principles of the Bible that my TWI-belief system was on the verge of a catastrophic failure by the time I left Rome City campus and was heading to my field assignment...yeah - I left TWI that same year! It doesn't take a genius to discern the incredibly contradictory differences between the plain truths and principles of the Bible and TWI's doctrine and practice. Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth (or lack of truth) so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception. from Wikipedia We deceive ourselves because we don’t have enough psychological strength to admit the truth and deal with the consequences that will follow. (clinical psychologist Cortney S. Warren ) And for thought-food here's some open ended questions: Have you ever thought of self-deception as a means to endure, survive or attenuate the impact of your TWI experience? Have you ever thought of your adaptive-self overshadowing your authentic-self? Is honesty the opposite of self-deception? Is self-delusion a failure to recognize reality? What is the difference between illusion and delusion?

I just may try Open Office - and maybe sooner than later...I’m having some issues with Neat Office - like occasionally “not responding” but that’s not to say there’s a problem with it...i may have a bigger issue with my laptop - it’s 10 years old and a couple of times since “the big reset” ScanDisk found some errors and attempted to repair them...I’m probably going to get a new laptop this year anyway and will give Open Office a shot...can it make a document into a PDF ?

Hi Skyrider, it’s always good to read your posts! I’ve thought about you quite a bit. I hope all is well with you and your family.

Why it’s mostly non-way corps who are wierwille-apologists at Grease Spot use to mystify me for the longest time until I realized the cause of my bewilderment. I had the “unfortunate advantage” of experiencing the inner workings of The Way International. The actual components that went into manufacturing “the perfect believer” were only known by those who worked in the factory - the way corps program - a “modern marvel” of mass production - a fully automated facility that gathered the raw material (folks like me who totally bought into wierwille’s delusion). We were scrutinized, personal boundaries were compromised, we were chastised and pulverized, family and friends may be demonized if the litmus test of “The Word” applies, We were cult-leader-mesmerized to the point he was idolized some of us were even brutalized, We were socially polarized, Our intuition was anesthetized even critical thinking was immobilized Became a subculture homogenized, stringing-chairs-incentivized, Our cost of living was subsidized, PFAL galvanized, authentic-self marginalized, make-believe-we’re-super-sized-yet-deep inside-we’re-trivialized, infamously immortalized, gypsy lifestyle was popularized, multilevel marketing customized get all the sales reps energized and officially authorized to be little clones of wierwille - i.e. “the perfect believer”. Were you surprised to have realized you were wierwille-ized? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! “The perfect believer” existed only in the imagination of wierwille and was never compatible with reality.

Yeah, Rocky - I’ve realized that a long time ago... as always there’s actually 2 reasons I post. My target audience is other folks whether in or out of TWI who have some doubts, questions, want to sort things out or maybe just looking for validation of some thoughts they’ve had so they check out Grease Spot...and as far as anyone else who still believes wierwille was the greatest - my posts may be a glimmer of hope to escape the nonsense. I never write anyone off or demonize them like wierwille and other TWI leadership would do - mark and avoid...declare someone is wrong seed...possessed...tricked by the devil. There is always hope.